When the Clock Stops
by Chewing Gum
Summary: The hour hand trudges on as a young Sherlock Holmes waits in the still of the night for his brother's pain to stop in whichever way it will. Finally updated!
1. Winding the Springs

**AN: This is just a little side project I'm starting to get a bit more practise with longer prose and will likely run under ten chapters. Feedback is greatly appreciated.**

**Edit: Went back and changed the title and summary to what I first planned it to be, and have remembered that my split-second choices usually are not good ones. The new title comes from a William Faulkner quote.**

The Holmes family of Oxfordshire was a strange institution long before one of its progeny graced the pages of "The Strand" and made it famous. The story, true or not, goes that a long way back when the family first settled, a Holmes wife bore a set of twin boys she could not birth and they were delivered by caesarean section, crude enough at the time to kill the woman. Almost immediately, the debate arose as to which boy was the heir; the one pulled from the womb through the incision first or the one who had been in the birth canal and would have been born first naturally.

The new father and widower pondered for fifteen years, until the day of his death, over the answer. On his sickbed, he gave his answer. He drew on the myth of Oedipus, the Greek king, and his two sons that were to share the throne of Thebes. He took into account how their story ended in ruin, however, and instead of the title being exchanged by the year, one son would rule for his time, and when he died his eldest nephew would take the title.

The man, pleased with himself, passed on. He neglected to mention who was to be the first heir. After a quick duel on the front lawn, the brother pulled first from the womb proved himself to have the quickest reflexes and therefore was most fit to manage his family's land. His half-brother's nephew would inherit the title without so much action.

Time passed.

Sherrinford Holmes was the brother of a country squire and a tall, broad man, bitter at losing the title of squire to his generation and family law, who saw no harm in clipping his two sons over the ear when they displeased him or slapping his sole daughter when she did similarly. His daughter's sole triumph in her short life would be that she died of tuberculosis at the age of twelve rather than by the hand of her father or future husband.

His oldest son was named Mycroft Sigerson (although he went by Sigerson, a name instilled from an Irish poet by a weak mother) and he would have been boxed more if he did not have a way of making himself disappear. His father long suspected him of being at least a man curious of the act of sodomy based on the fact that he was highly diligent in his studies, read copious amounts of poetry, and his sketches and paintings could all but leap from the page into life.

His second, Trafford, was considered by Sherrinford to be a second chance. The first son was often sickly and might not live, and he was determined to not make the same mistakes again. Being solidly built like his father, he lacked his brother's stealth and was beaten so much in his early years that he began to resemble his father not only in appearance but in mindset.

Sigerson Holmes survived to adulthood, however, and his father had died of a coronary infraction three years before his uncle had passed on peacefully. He had two sons himself, Mycroft Sigerson the Second (he had no attachment to the Irish poet and thus went by his first name), and seven years later Sherlock Émile, his middle name coming from his mother's famous uncle.

Trafford Holmes had two children as well. His son was born a year before the second Mycroft Sigerson and was christened Sherrinford for his grandfather. His daughter Adelaide was born in another five years. Trafford nor his wife were inventive enough for middle names. Trafford would die when his son was thirteen. His wife three years dead, only his daughter mourned him. He had, after all, learned fatherhood at the heel of his own father. Sigerson and his wife Violet took the two children into their own home. Trafford's murder was only briefly investigated.


	2. Twelve O'Clock

I rarely dreamed as a child and therefore I was awaken only from soulless darkness when a low groan infiltrated the silence of the huge manor. I remember my hand reaching out from the warmth of the covers and into night air, unnaturally cold for July, to grope the face of my clock. Both hands were up, the gap closing fast. Nearly midnight.

Another sound, higher this time. If it were not for two things, I would have thought it was Adelaide in another one of her moods. But Adelaide's room was too far away, and there was true agony in these pitches, not faked sorrow for a man despised. It was easy to place these noises for they were in the room next to me, and this is the reason I darted from bed, paying no attention to the temperature, and dashed so quickly into my brother's chamber that I nearly brained myself on the doorknob.

At first I thought this was a rare dream, for such a pathetic noise could surely not come from a person like my brother. I had never seen him come close to tears in my entire life, even when he had limped home a month ago after being thrown from his horse or when Mother declined to come to London when his school's mathematics league took first in the country at their finals. Surely this was some sort of illusion, for my brother had a limited ability to even feel pain.

The oil lamp on his bedside lamp was still glowing dimly and the book on the floor was open and facing down. It had struck him suddenly; I cannot count the number of times Mycroft had chastened me for leaving a book the same way and ruining the spine.

I will never forget the look on his face. My brother was never one for expressions, all his emotions were subdued to subtle flickers on his visage, but at the moment he was twisted into a caricatured sculpture of a sinner in the flames. His jaw was clenched fiercely, lips snarled and teeth bared in an almost animalistic fashion, the small of his back arched but the large of it almost rooted, fists clenched to create paper-white knuckles and rivets of scarlet blood where his dull, neat nails had been forced into his palms. His black hair was plastered to his skull and beads of sweat decorated him like rain. Although his lid were cinched shut, I could see the spasms of small muscles as his eyes rolled and jittered beneath them. I did not know a person could moan like that with teeth closed.

I do not stand there long although at the time it felt like hours. When I ran for my parents' wing of the manor, the clocks of the house were tolling midnight in near unison. Clockwork was a hobby of my father's, and each item in the house containing so much as a gear and a spring was subject to his service.

Had our nanny been there, my brother would have been attended to earlier. I was a deep sleeper but Miss Angus could tell when something was wrong before it even happened (or so it seemed sometimes). She slept in our wing, no longer Mycroft's nanny officially but still mothering him when she could find him. Miss Angus, however, was visiting her family in London. I did not know how long my brother had been suffering while I slept in utter peace.

The rugs about the manor and I had always had a intemperate relationship. They lay in wait, perfectly innocent, when I was alone or unconcerned entirely. When I was in the presence of my esteemed brother, grace-installing nanny, or silently judging mother, they always seemed to trip me and either make me stumble or land me on my face or back. Mycroft said it was because I was always hurrying everywhere. This was probably true, but I did not mind the bumps, bruises and humiliation enough to correct my behaviour.

If I ever had a reason to hurry, however, this was it, and if there was ever a perfect moment for one of those officious rugs to thwart me, the same principle applied. My bare feet were skidding on the floor from my panicked sweat and I all but slid onto one, hitting a corner folded up and flying forward. My shoulder punctured through the glass front of one of the less expensive grandfather clocks, showering glass upon me although only shallow cuts on my shoulder resulted. I hit the ground with my head before my body and I gave a groan that mimicked my brother's.

As the world around me began to stop swirling and my blurred vision cleared itself, I heard the opening of the door to my left and footsteps padded by the very rug that might have broken my neck had it been a bit more crafty.

"Sherlock...?" yawned my cousin, tall and solid Sherrinford who liked riding better than mathematics and holding me upside down by my ankles better than hugging me, two of the few things we could ever agree upon. We had become closer the past year when Mycroft had gone off to a London boarding school, leaving him with the local school and me with my tutors. I twisted my throbbing head in time to see him blink the last traces of sleep from his woodland eyes and see me clearly. "Sherlock, Jesus Christ! Do you know what time it is?"

I struggled to my feet although much of the dizziness remained and only made it after Sherrinford grabbed me by the shoulder and hauled me up. "Sher... Mycroft's ill..."

His rocky face displayed his feelings much more frequently and freely than Mycroft (so close in age and yet so entirely different, the two were easy to contrast). "What do you mean, ill?"

"I mean _ill_!" My heart felt as if it were going to be pulled into two pieces by the same feeling of worry. "Very, very ill! He's practically burning and moaning... He looks... Sher, he looks like he's dying! Something's wrong, something's very, very..."

Sherrinford stooped to look me in the eye. At fifteen, he was nearly at his full height and already six feet tall. Mycroft (another contrast) was to be fourteen in a month and had yet to hit his growth spurt. Years in the future, Sherrinford would always been that fraction taller than him, and three fractions taller than myself. At the moment, however, we were equals in height if only for a bend of the knee.

"Sherlock, listen close, alright? I'm going to go saddle up a horse and go for the doctor. You go get your father." I did not even have the chance to protest before he continued. "I'm the fastest rider in the house, the game master included and everyone but him knows that. Go get your parents, I'll be back." With that, he sprinted down the hall towards the stables, not bothering to change from his thin sleep clothes.

My balance mostly regained, I made it to my parents' bedroom without cracking my skull open, although I was now bleeding lightly from my sliced shoulder. I pounded furiously on the huge oak door before swinging it open.

The gas light on my father's sight had been hastily turned on and he was fumbled for his glasses, my mother sitting up and not looking amused.

"Sherlock, do you know what time it is!"

This furious tone was not entirely familiar to me. My mother had always been worlds more patient with me than with Mycroft; an act that likely would have resulted in him being banished to his room or losing his pocket money would garner no more than a swat on the behind or a harsh word for me. Of course, Mycroft rarely did anything to warrant punishment and on the rare occasion he had, no punishment seemed to have the least bit of impact on him.

I had wondered for a long time why she seemed so disinclined towards Mycroft when she at least made an effort to seem motherly towards me. I asked my brother once, and it was one of the rare times I saw true discomfort on his face as he stiffened slightly and then adjusted himself in the library wing chair, not meeting my eyes but rather masking himself with a book on the origins of the Italian language.

"I suppose," he said with a tone that implied that he was thinking as he spoke. I would have believed this had he not told me from the time I could talk that one always had to think before opening ones mouth. "That it is because Mother cherishes things that are the way they are supposed to be. Her profession is one that follows a massive but constant list of rules that are always true. You are much closer to a normal child, in demeanour if not mind, than I am."

I was five years old at the time, and the mention of Mother's profession made me frown (she told everyone her study was used for her correspondence, and I always thought that she must have a multitude of friends in faraway places), but I did not mention this. Even then, I had a feeling that was a conversation for another day. "You could pretend to be normal, you know."

He gave a noncommittal shrug, finding Italian verbs more intriguing than his relationship with our mother.

I did not like to think my brother would lie, but I know that there were many things he wished to shield me from until I was older. I did not see disinterest in my mother's eyes when she looked at Mycroft, nor did I see true hate. I saw the slightest trace of fear, but I did not know why.

"Mycroft's ill!" I was panting and in pain, but the tears in my eyes were not the result of any injury I had sustained. "It... It looks bad. Sherrinford went for a doctor."

"Bad?" My father asked, vaulting from beneath the covers, his tall form quickly closing in on me but going beyond and out the door, leaving both my mother and I to scramble behind him. "How bad, Sherlock?"

"He..." At seven, I had no words for what I had seen. My adored brother, the one who could answer any question as if it was the most commonly known thing in the world, who rarely became annoyed with me and never hollered if he did, who never threw me out of his bed if I were to crawl in there during a particularly vicious storm. Although I had told Sherrinford I thought he was dying, the gravity of what death truly meant and how it might just come crashing down on my brother hit me full force and my tears gave way to full sobbing.

I was seven; I believe my lack of emotional control can be excused.

My father's step did not even hesitate as he lifted me easily into his arms and where my mother flinched when I embraced her, my father thought little of me wrapping my hands around his neck and crying into his shoulder.

We passed Adelaide's door, the pretty girl ten years old and in my mind one of the lowest forms of life on the planet. She hated nearly everyone in the house in such a sickly sweet way that there were times I was tempted to cut all her shiny brown hair off while she slept.

"Uncle Sigerson...?" she questioned, blue eyes wide with entirely false concern. "What is going on?"

"Mycroft's ill." My father's response was as gentle as he could manage, but his step did not slow. When he reached my brother's room he set me down. "Stay here, Sherlock."

When he opened the door I tried to get in, no matter what he said. I could see Mycroft withering there in pain I could not fathom. I wanted to be by his side, to help in any way I could.

Father pushed me back with a firm hand. "Sherlock, I mean it. If it's contagious I do not want you to contract it, and you should not have to see him suffer. Besides," he added, running a hand of fondness through my hair. "He would not want to be seen by you like this. You know how regal he always acts. Go comfort your cousin." With that, he closed the door.

I was left there, standing in the hallway, feeling that my only brother would be dead before the sun rose again and knowing that the act of comforting Adelaide would be like giving a piranha poison sacks; completely unneeded and potentially hazardous to my health.

"How bad is he?" the doll of a girl questioned as she approached me, her lavender housecoat trimmed with lace draped about her tiny form like an Indian sari. Now that my father was gone, her look of distress had been abandoned for one of the curiosity one might find on the face of a person who attends the funerals of strangers.

I sank onto the polished floor, my back against the wall and my wet eyes focused on Mycroft's bedroom door. "He might die..."

"Hmm..." It was a rather neutral sound, one that sounded as if she were considering the night's outcomes as they would affect her own world. I could almost see inside her thick head. On one hand, everyone paid attention to a grieving relative, but on the other she looked terrible in black. "Whatever happens," she finally sighed with a smile I wanted to slice off of her face. "It will be God's will. Mycroft _is_ a heathen, after all."

On any other day I would have fought with her, but I only pulled my knees up to my aching chest, wrapped my arms around them, and bowed my head.


	3. Two O'Clock

Would it be a sin to say that I was glad to be woken up that night? It sounds as if it would be. It is not that I wished such pain on Myke, that I would never do, but the nightmares that had me in their grip that night were of a belt and a great amount of blood, and the symphony of broken glass that unthreaded them was more than welcome.

Mere seconds after I picked my bleeding cousin up off the floor I was tearing down the hallway, fighting to keep the breath in my chest even to conserve my strength. I had never been more grateful to smell sweet straw and musty wood than when I reached the stables.

I cannot remember a time when Myke was not a permanent fixture in my life. I suppose there wasn't long when he wasn't, only a year, a handful of months. From the time I could walk, my cousin was as steady an object as the cornerstones of the Holmes manor and about as stony. As for as unyielding, however, I seemed to be able to talk him into just about anything when I set my mind to it.

The fastest horse in our stable was a huge black Arabian named Oberon that had come here a month ago with a smaller female dubbed Bianca. Myke had named them and therefore their names suited their temperament. Oberon had been an early birthday gift for him, but so far only one of the stable boys and I had been brave enough to ride him and he had tossed both of us like dice. I made it over the fence onto the grass and I got back in the saddle. The stable boy changed careers to be a post office clerk. He, Oberon that is, was nearly broken then, and that was good enough for me.

I heard him snort as I gathered the bridle, knowing I did not have time for a saddle. I could ride bareback as well I could English, and better than I could Western (which the rightful owner of the horse despised). I paused only a moment before I decided the worry for my cousin was greater than the worry my guts were going to be spread from there to Bradbury Cross if this horse decided to go mean on me.

Myke would tell me that I was being stupid if he were there. He would reason that if I killed myself on the way to the doctor's house, he would be worse off than before. I, on the other hand, knew I could hold on. I did not know how, I merely knew.

People look between Myke and me and say that although we are entirely different, they can tell quite clearly that we are cousins. The only feature I can see that I share with him is our black hair, and even his is always neat and mine is forever unruly. He was pale from far too many hours spent in the library and plump from the same reason. I on the other hand bore calloused on my palms, tanned skin, and wrought, hard muscles from riding, hunting, tacking, grooming and breaking; anything I could move during I enjoyed. There was also those eyes of his; I've heard people argue over if his eyes are beautiful or ugly. I doubt he cares either way.

My cousin has a tendency to scare people, but Myke was always in my life and I suspect this is why his frightening intellect never phased me in the least bit. When we were five years old, I would wonder what was beyond the next hill and Myke would muse about how the Muslims were fairing in Israel. I'd be figuring out a way to pilfer apples from the neighbour's tree, he'd attempt to lecture me on the various technique horticulturists throughout history had used to breed apples. I'd throw said apples at him, and he'd mutter moodily about Sir Isaac Newton and how _he_ never had to put up with the likes of me.

Oberon tried to bite me and I gave him a smack over the nose with the bridle. He sneezed and humbled a bit, enough to get it onto him and make him stand still. I grabbed one of the heavy coats on the hooks, throwing it over my sleep clothes and slipping on a pair of boots that I thought were mine but did not fit right. I did not bother to change them.

I spent more time at the manor than I did in my own home even when Father was alive for many reasons. While my sister seemed to take some distorted pleasure in taking punishments when he doled them ("It's in the Bible that you should respect your father, Sherrinford!" she would whine, although many of the things she used her good book as a crutch for was not in the text), I had no desire to be a rag doll for him to toss around. Uncle Sigerson was kinder and Aunt Violet always had more sweet words for me than her own son. I was glad when my father died and I feel no shame in admitting that. Although I cried when my mother died, she was too much like Adelaide for me to fall to pieces for her.

My cousin did not leave my side until I asked him to when my father died. Myke was a cornerstone, a support beam, a huge stone cliff. He had always been there and, as children do, I assumed he always would be. It was an odd feeling of detachment when he went away to boarding school, though while Sherlock was no replacement for his brother he made quite an interesting playmate and he never needed coaxing to follow along with my ideas.

When he went to school, I knew he would be back for holidays and summer. This was different. This was an illness, an illness perhaps he could die of. He could die. Dead people did not come home for Christmas.

I have a theory about my father's murder that I have never told anyone, not even Mycroft. I think Uncle Sigerson killed him. He threatened to once and aimed a pistol at my father's head when I was ten. Father had just knocked me to the ground and made my ear bleed and my uncle told him that if he did that again he'd put a hole through his forehead, brother or not. He was trembling as he said it. My uncle, not my father. My father never trembled. I believed my uncle could have done it, however.

A huge difference between Myke and I is that he plans his thoughts out entirely before even seriously considering them and probably takes the wind direction in China into consideration. I can barely keep one thought in front of the other. When I headed down the fastest but less worn path to Dr. Jenson's hillside home, I had forgotten the storm we had gotten a week ago. It had been a monster of a windstorm, and there were branches and even trunks all over the path.

Oberon was not in the least bit phased; he was a natural as a jumping horse. I with no saddle and ill-fitting boots was not quite as confident. I might have been able to turn back if I was careful and the third time I almost slipped from the beast's back I nearly did, but if I did not press on, Myke would never be able to come up with the plans that worked again.

Uncle was not the killing type, he did not even hunt, but he despised my father. He saw the bruises on the pair of us and on our mother before she died and he knew that if he went to the law they would only tell him what they had told so many before him; the law had no place in a man's home (although I found it crushingly ironic that they'd arrested a man down the road for bedding with another man in privacy of his own home. He never did come back from his two years' labour). I have no proof but I believe Sigerson Holmes may have been able to muster just enough courage to poison him.

If he did, I am forever grateful to him. If he did not, I have plenty more to thank him for.

Myke and Sherlock had become like brothers to me, and not in the way that brothers usually were in our family. My father and my uncle were not abnormalities of the family but rather what had become a normal relationship for siblings of our clan due to the unique, zigzagging heritage. There were two separate families; the main branch and the cadet branch, which rotated titles. When one branch died completely, brother was set against brother for the vast amounts of land so much blood had been spilt over. The only way a squire could have his son take his title upon his death was to kill his rivals before they produced heirs.

The feeling of a straining, hurtling horse underneath me was usually a feeling I cherished, and Oberon was a particularly fine horse, but there was a sense of purpose to this ride that none other had possessed before. He bucked when he jumped a bit but as his energy was forced into speed this lessened and my urgency had made my hands into welded steel around the reigns.

I let out a sharp cry when the horse landed hard after shooting over a fallen pine and my groin and lower stomach were bounced forward, hitting the bony neck in a way that did not bother him in the slightest but sent pain shooting throughout my body. My holler was echoed by half a dozen hoots, owls hunting in the night for hapless mice and voles, a hundred little lives to be taken that night and I was risking life and limb to save just one. I felt no guilt; no vole had ever shown me how to ready up makeshift firecrackers.

The demon of the horse was going to throw me sometime that night, it was an eventuality I had come to realize quickly, and I was merely thankful he did it when the doctor's house was in view. Grass was much easier to be driven into than a tree. I was also glad it was summer and the soil had not been made as hard as rock by the frost.

Nevertheless, when one moment I was elated and the next the wind was knocked straight out of me by the fist of gravity, I was far from happy. I screamed as I moved the first time, not thinking anything broken but at the time wishing I had no body merely for the lack of pain it would mean.

Oberon slowed and then stopped, turning to look back at me. Had he been able to speak, he no doubt would have been chuckling at me.

Ignoring the vines of red-hot pain that were my only warmth in the frigid night, I loped forward in time to grab the devil's reins before he could escape on me and ran the rest of the way to the house. A knock was not needed; my cry had already woken up the whole house.

The doctor was the one who opened the door, a male servant scrambling behind him in an attempt to beat him to it. Dr. Jenson was a man well-familiar with me as he saw me at my uncle's insistence for injuries I would have walked off before. Those dark eyes of his never failed to glare critically when I would be forced to recount what brought on my latest broken wrist or mild concussion and each time he would reprehend me, then in a month or so the cycle would begin again.

"Master Holmes." It was a statement, and not even a confused one. He knew my cries of pain anywhere. I had never seen him in anything but his starched black suit and neatly combed hair, black leather bag in his right hand. Now he was in a white nightshirt and his greying hair was haphazard. Only he could manage to look professional and intimidating under the circumstances. "Do you know you are bleeding?"

"No, sir, but I don't doubt it. Sir, Myke's ill, sir, and not looking good."

The doctor gave a rather confused look. "Myke...?"

"Mycroft, sir. My cousin. Sherlock came crashing down the hall at midnight and said he was burning with fever and..." From within, a tiny mantle clock let forth a single 'ping'. "Is it only half past, then?" I had made amazing time; there might be hope.

The male servant shook his head. "One, sir, I'm afraid. O'clock, that is."

My face and my stomach fell. One o'clock! An hour... How was that possible? Then it came to me; the paths had been dark and my energy had been on controlling Oberon the best I could. I must have taken a longer path. I had burnt precious moments of Myke's dimming life tramping around the forest!

Dr. Jenson must have seen my dismay for he clapped the rough hand of a country doctor on my shoulder. "Patience, lad. I ride fast, but I'll take the main road. I suggest you do the same in your shape. You'll insist upon riding back with news?"

I nodded, not quite sure I could sit up in the saddle I did not have but knowing I would try. "Please, sir... Hurry. I didn't see him but it takes a lot to shake up Sherlock that badly." Every bone in my body from my heel to my stirrup (another bit of useless information by way of Myke; the stirrup bone in your ear was the smallest in your body) was protesting any sort of movement, but I mounted from the doctor's fencepost onto Oberon, gleefully ignoring his snorting objections to another ride so soon and sending him thundering towards the well-beaten road.

It was not my elder cousin on my mind on the ride home but my younger. Sherlock may have acted just like any other boy the majority of the time, running about and getting dirty even when there was no dirt to be found, but at the same time he was different. You could see it in his eyes sometimes when was truly concentrating on something. Myke was teaching him face to face and through letters from London, schooling him in their games of figuring things out from the most obscure of clues and how to focus the endless energy he contained into something that just might do a lot of people some good some day.

Myke was the only person who could truly understand Sherlock, so where did that leave the boy if he were to die? Would he become withdrawn, a hermit, how Myke was before Sherlock was born and I began to pester him? Would he turn away from society? Or would he open up to it so much that he would leave the ineffable talent behind to be more like every other person in the muddy world?

When I stabled the horse, there was a stable boy waiting to lather him down. I was grateful for this. I managed to stager into the house, tell the butler the doctor was coming, and was whisked off to a hot bath by one of the maids. I had not noticed the cold when I was in it, but in the house all my limbs began to tingle and ache from the sudden change of temperature.

My body resting in warm water although my mind was still frozen, I heard the clock strike two. The maid had told me Myke was still alive but he was worsening.

I always told him I'd finally call him Mycroft when we were adults. I prayed to be given the chance to do that.


	4. Quarter to Three O'Clock

I know who killed my brother Trafford. Or, at least, I have a very strong suspicion. I was the first one to examine the body and although I have never been one for any sort of vigilante justice, I took it upon myself to remove an object from my brother's body that may have led to the hanging of the murderer.

I am a Christian man, but the Commandments say to honour your mother and your father. They say nothing about your siblings. One should never praise a murderer but if God saw it fit to drown nearly every single man, woman and child in the world in one fell sweep, perhaps he could see justice in the one who took the deed upon himself. Perhaps my wife has instilled in me her relative sense of right and wrong.

I love Violet; she is the singular most odd woman I have ever met and this intrigued me since the first time I saw her. She was beneath our class and my father demanded a dowry from her family that was far more than reasonable. She paid it herself and I was at a loss where it had come from until I stumbled upon her notebooks on our honeymoon to France and saw government addresses.

She was delighted with our firstborn in his early months. He was a small newborn and her labour was short and he began to squirm, sit up and creep at the precisely right times. Mycroft's teething was the first event that began to chip away at her notions of novelty. The poor boy had a horrible time when his teeth came in; he had two extra molars and he wept nearly every hour he was awake. I hired a good nanny with a background as a nurse and comforted him as much as I could myself. Violet soundproofed her study and began to take most of her meals in there.

This ended, as it eventually does, and my wife began to cautiously attempt to be a mother once more now that the storm waters had cleared. This did not last long. Although he began talking at the normal age, our son gained coherency and a vast vocabulary at an amazing rate. At four, one could swear they were speaking with a boy of twelve. It was at that age that he brought up the subject of photosynthesis at the dinner table after observing the flowers in the centrepiece beginning to wilt. 

Violet rose from the table and went to her study, all attempts at raising a normal child failed. She knew (or thought she knew, in any case) what to do with an average child, but had no more of an idea how to deal with this prodigy than how to calculate acceleration on a constantly changing surface. 

Mycroft accepted this with grace a toddler should not possess, seeming to take his mother's rejection of him as an eventuality rather than a shocking event. He was not terribly upset by it outwardly; he had always leaned towards me much more strongly. Since he could walk he would follow me when he could and I would always slow or carry him along. He would sit beside me and watch with those intense grey eyes as I dissected or reassemble watches and clocks. He always had a thousand questions, not all of them I could answer, so I was glad when he could read and I had the encyclopaedias put on a shelf he could easily reach. He was a clever boy, an abnormally clever boy, but he was still a boy and he was still my son.

When I pushed Sherlock out into the corridor and closed the bedroom door, I heard him moan. I turned to see him all but convulsing, face both pale and flushed with fever. My heart already sunk I moved closer to him, touching his twitching hand. There was no response.

"Oh, Mycroft..." I whispered, knowing he could not hear me but not caring. I glanced around the room, seeing that whatever plagued him was likely sudden. He was still dressed, on top of his covers, and I saw a book nearby. He had been up late reading, far from odd behaviour from him. 

Biting my lip and already whispering frantic prayers within my mind, I forced my hands to be as steady as they could be and unbuttoned his shirt, prodding his soft chest and slightly protruding stomach. When I approached the right side of his abdomen, he gave a pitiful moan that made me jump and withdraw. Upon feeling more thoroughly, there was a hardness there.

"His appendix," spoke my wife from behind me, voice almost drowned out with our son's cry of pain. I turned to see her crossing her arms, long, lean form stiff and formal, demeanour chipped only at her uncharacteristic fidgeting. 

I nodded, turning my gaze back to Mycroft. "Go tell the servants to bring ice water and a compact. We can try to bring down his fever but not much else until the doctor arrives." I stroked his round cheek as a whimper came from lips that were more adept to recite chemical formulas. "Though God knows when that will be after that storm took out the faster paths."

I heard her walk towards the door, stepping to the side to avoid the discarded book as if she would become ill by touching it (although I knew that she knew far better than that), and then paused at the door.

Mycroft could know things merely by glancing at them, and Sherlock was quickly acquiring the same skill. I could not count the number of times my eldest had patiently explained his reasoning to me, and while it made perfect sense I could never connect the dots on anything substantial. All the same, my son would often comment that they had gotten this trait from me. Mycroft said that in many instances, what I took as intuition was my mind processing facts without consulting me and merely spitting back an answer. It was a bad habit, he had laughed, but a useful one at times.

It was for this reason that I knew why Violet had hesitated, I believe. Nearly fourteen years of all but fearing the child she had given life to and now the one she feared was lying helpless in great pain, all his intelligence useless against a disease no one could prevent.

"He is mortal, Violet," I spoke, attempting to keep my voice from trembling but not quite able to. My father had licked me with his belt more than once for such weak emotions but he was no longer around to do so. "When it all comes down to what matters, Mycroft is a boy. A child. Not a genius, not supernatural, merely a child who may well die. He is no different from me or even you."

"I know that," she spat back, voice lacking its usual venom and knowing it, sounding so disgusted with herself that she could not gather a sizeable ball of hate. 

Or was it something else...? I had told my son time and time again that his mother loved him deep down in her heart but had begun to doubt it myself until I heard that tone. There was a longing in that tone. She saw him as a human only while he was dying like a human would do.

"Go get ice water." I had never been good at giving firm commands, but this one was obeyed and she left the room, closing the door to cut of the beginning of little Adi starting with "Aunt Violet, is My..." I felt great sympathy for her and Sherlock; they were likely too young to comprehend how dire the situation was and how disastrous it could turn out if Mycroft's appendix was to rupture.

My prayers were with Sherrinford, urging him on along what I knew would be a treacherous way after the storm that had blown through the county a week ago. I knew how good a rider the boy was, he seemed as at home in a saddle as Mycroft did at a desk or Sherlock did with a bow in his hand. I also knew how much he treasured the time spent with his cousin and hoped he had not risked riding Oberon, our current local devil.

I had a feeling he had taken that very horse, however, and so I prayed that my nephew returned to us with his neck and back in as many pieces as it was supposed to be in.

The fact that the two branches of the Holmes family could live under one roof was nothing short of miraculous. We were known as almost a gruesome legend through Oxfordshire, a warning to squires-to-be against greed and jealousy. No one knows how many cousins, brothers, sons and fathers have killed one another in pursuit of a title given by men to rule over only men on their own terms. I imagine that the females of this family are not entirely innocent, either. There is one story I find particularly horrible about a jealous aunt drowning her brother's heir in the bath pan.

By rights, Sherrinford and Mycroft should be enemies, but Mycroft rejected all forms of competition. He was in his school's math league only at my pleading that he do something social. Sherrinford did not seem to care that Mycroft's son would steal the land from his own sun.

At times, however, I wondered if there was some secret between the two I was not privy to. I questioned my son about this only once and was given a reply quotes from the Tao Te Ching.

"_Difficulties remain even after solving a problem. How can we consider this good? Therefore the Master does what she knows is right and makes no demands of others."_

This only brought me more confusion. The solving of the problem I understood; our long-dead relative devising a way to keep his sons from fighting that ended with the death of one. But what exactly was what Mycroft knew as right?

I should not have worried over it so much. Mycroft had always been mature and Sherrinford was more grounded than his still childish demeanour often implied. I dared to hope that the history of blood, jealousy and deceit of our family might end peacefully with their generation. Perhaps friendships have been struck between rivals before in our past, perhaps the same peace had been promised only to be retracted, and I was foolish to pray for and end to it all. Nonetheless, one had to have hope.

Hope was the only thing that kept me sane through that night. It was torturous to watch my son twist and cry out, knowing I could do nothing for him but attempt to bring down his fever with cold water. I knew I would have to release him into the world some day and in a few years I would no longer have control over his life, but at the moment no mortal was in charge of anything.

I nearly prayed for God to spare him for his gifts and then stopped myself. How many times had I told Mycroft, and those around him, that his talent made him no better or worse than anyone else? Such intelligence would give many people great arrogance, but between my teachings and his study of Taoism, my son had grown to be a very humble person. It was not fair to ask that his singular powers be the reason he live while another would die.

Instead, I prayed for his survival because he was young and it was not yet his time. I did not know if it would be answered. I had said the same prayer for my sister and she had been taken by disease. I had prayed often for my brother's salvation but he died a bitter and vengeful man. I had prayed that my wife accept our eldest son, but she still shunned him. But I had also prayed for God to save my niece and nephew. He had, albeit in a most violent way.

I rarely attended church anymore because each Sunday the message the local priest would declare became increasingly depressing. Damnation and fire and brimstone for the Jews and the Muslims and the Hindus. Never mind that those who were condemned as heathens may have done more good deeds in their life than any man who ever called himself a Christian; they deserved Hell for choosing the wrong path when the only compass was blind faith, which all religions preached.

I rejected this notion that a single word could damn a man. Perhaps the Bible was written by God, but it was recorded by man's pen too many years ago to be taken as the Words of Life. There were so many versions, all claiming to agree yet all slightly different and all claiming they themselves were correct without any input from He who first said them.

Instead, I accepted many years ago that a man could do good and be good without taking that leap of faith at all. I did not worry that my eldest consulted an Eastern book for spiritual matters or that my youngest seemed to only have the barest interest in religion. Sherrinford's church was in the woods, among nature (many would call him a pagan for that, but where was the sin in appreciating God's gifts?).

No, it was the near-model of Christianity in the house that bothered me. Adelaide attended service each Sunday with our butler at her side, read no other book but her textbooks and her Bible, and prepared to accept her lot in life as a woman just as the pages instructed her to do. She had honoured her father and her mother when neither did anything to garner it. 

She also glared at anyone who pitied her for the abusive treatment she had received and insisted that she had deserved every strike, every blow. She was a strong believer in original sin, that all humans were cursed from birth and would remain so, and that a man had a right to do as he pleased to a woman in his household. Violet seemed to be a walking warning to her of what happened when a woman went undisciplined.

I tried my best to talk to her, to persuade her that all the punishment she had endured at such a young age had not been deserved in any way, but she would turn away from me and grow silent. My heart broke each time anew for the poor lost creature, and I wondered if she would ever feel happiness, true happiness, again. Although she was only ten, I was already considering arranging a marriage for her, fearful of the kind of man she might chose on her own.

Although I would not go so far as arrange a marriage, I found myself as entrapped in the customs as anyone else. Sherrinford had a contract with the Fenton family that his father had made that only the girl's family could break and would benefit both families greatly if Heather remained their only child. I did my best to prod Mycroft in the direction of the Palin family, whose niece was a beautiful girl from the city who had expressed interest in him although the two had never met. 

My son, of course, rejected the idea outright. At first I thought it was the type of girl, but one Delilah Hart was the polar opposite and he ignored her as much as she would let him. An admirer of the principles of love, I felt more sympathy towards her than him when each advance on him failed to rouse any affection in him.

I could only hoped that this was only another aspect of his late blooming and that he would not remain in solitude his entire life. Mycroft carried great burdens then and they would only get heavier; he needed someone to ease his trials, even if only through companionship. 

I watched as the hours slipped away from the world and my son's movements grew weaker and weaker, his persistent fever not rising but refusing to lose any ground. To my surprise, Violet continued to come and go from the room, actual concern in her eyes if not in her words. Perhaps she was seeing him as a person for the first time in a decade.

I found the thin book of the Tao in Mycroft's bedside table and read silently. I tried to put from my mind the fact that only a few years ago I had removed the same book from the stiff hand of my poisoned brother. 

"_The righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance. He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked_."

The doctor opened the door at quarter to three so gently I was sure he expecting to find a young corpse and a father in mourning. Instead he found a fading prodigy and a pair of parents merely anticipating mourning. He shooed my wife and I from the room and as the door closed behind us, my tears finally ran.

_AN: For the record, the growth of extra teeth is called hyperdontia. Growth of extra molars is the rarest form of the largely harmless condition, so I felt it appropriate. The Tao Te Ching quote Mycroft gives his father is from poem 71 (1996 Macdonald translation). The Bible verse at the end is Psalms 58:10 (KJV)._

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	5. Half Past Four

We waited in the library. None of us were entirely sure why. I went there, and Adelaide followed me. Although I did not think she held any pity for her dying cousin, I suspected that she could feel the intruding fog of impending death just as well as I could. Perhaps more; after all, she must have felt it for her parents.

The room was the largest in the house besides the ballroom, and almost all its walls were lined with dark oak shelves. Most of them had held only dust and many of them still did, but once Father was in legal possession of the manor he began to fill those shelves with more enthusiasm than most other squires in our gnarled family tree. Thanks to his efforts, our private library now rivalled that of universities. Mycroft had inherited our father's love of tomes, which he in turn passed on to me, and on most any day my brother could be found in one of the huge chairs with his nose in a book about something complicated.

Sherrinford joined us once he had returned from his epic in the forest (which he related to anyone who would listen two weeks later). His soreness was obvious in his stiff movements even after a hot bath, and his face had been scratched by the very Mother Nature he cherished. I noted that his black hair was dripping all over the hardwood.

"I took too long." His words were as close to being a moan as they could be. He sank like a lump of gelatine into one of the deep, plush winged chaired. Had he hunched any more, his ears would have neatly touched his knees. "I lost the path and I took longer than I should have."

"You should disinfect those scrapes," I noted, my voice sounding grey and dull even in my own mind. I was sitting on the window seat, my favoured place in the huge room, my forehead resting against the cool, smooth pane.

"And you should bandage that cut on your shoulder, but neither of us have." Sherrinford was, by nature, a very good-tempered boy, and he had a special fondness reserved for little brothers with me, and yet now he was an edgy as a scalded cat, snapping at my misguided concern.

Truth be told, I had forgotten about my tumble into the pane of the clock, accepting the pain as emotional rather than physical. I longed not to feel so much sickening, aching worry for another, and yet if Mycroft was in my place he would likely comment quite dryly on the amazing the bonds we humans form.

"Stop being idiots," spoke Adelaide, her lacy lavender housecoat that matched her lacy lavender nightdress pooling around her like a frilly, feminine bird's nest. She herself was thumbing through a book of sketches of various passion plays throughout the era.

If I remembered correctly, Mycroft had bought that book in Italy. Merely thinking of him in Venice, healthy and bartering uncharacteristically aggressively with booksellers in their native language, my strained heart gave a sharp pang I could feel in my teeth.

"Either clean the cuts or let them get infected, I don't care, but stop butting heads together like a pair of rams. It's barbaric," she continued in her little girl's voice although her words more that of a bitter, middle-aged woman, one whose husband had flown as fast as he could out the door the first chance he got.

"Your shirt is getting soaked with blood," Sherrinford noted with an admitting, accepting sigh, nodding towards the spreading pool of blood that was staining my nightshirt beyond repair. "It ought to be cleaned."

I gave a relenting nod, rising as if I were some kind of Haitian zombie. My feet did not feel as if they were touching the floor as I followed my older cousin out the door. The whole night felt like one long, ill dream, and no matter how long it lasted I held the expectation that I would wake, panting and damp with sweat.

We headed towards the kitchen, where the medical supplies were kept close in case of a skip of a knife, both of us as silent as marble graveyard angels. Neither of us quite knew what to say, and so the only sounds were the howling of the ever-increasing wind and the soft thumps of our feet on the finely woven rugs.

Finally, I felt the need to speak. I despised long silences. "Mother would rather if he died instead of me. If it happens." I believe I was trembling as I stated this, but I do not begrudge myself this; I was very young and it was a very blunt truth.

"That's not true, Sherlock." Even as he spoke, however, I could tell how terse he was. I had developed a great perception of people even at that age, and Sherrinford was a horrible liar. It was the truth, and he knew it full well.

"It's not fair, Sherrinford! She shouldn't hate him! He never did anything to her!" To my everlasting embarrassment, I felt hot tears beginning to well in my eyes, their very presence threatening to make a blubbering coward out of a usually tough-hearted little boy. This was a topic much thought of but never discussed in the manor, and years of pressure were being released within me. "Why does she hate him so much? Did he do something bad?"

The boy (though he was nearly a man in my eyes, and therefore should have at least some answers for me), was silent as he cleaned my shoulder, ignoring the hiss I gave at the sharp pain of the alcohol making contact with the open skin. As he bandaged it, he finally spoke again. "Yes and no."

"Yes and no what?"

"Yes and no, Mycroft did something most people would consider bad. That's not the reason why your mother treats him like she does, but it certainly wouldn't have helped."

I considered asking what he had done. Placid Mycroft surely could not have done anything too terrible, but seeing the look on my cousin's face, I decided that perhaps another question would suit the situation better. "Why does Mother hate him?"

His face was usually adorned by a radiant smile that made all the girls in the village (and even those from surrounding villages) flock to him. Of course I think the only one he wanted was Delilah, and she had firmly attached herself to one, also bearing the Holmes name, who did not want her. Now, however, it reminded me of rain upon a window pane; not the full force of the storm, but enough of a view of it to depress ones spirit.

"Aunt Violet…"He paused, as if searching for the exactly precise vocabulary and grammar ton describe the woman that was my mother. No doubt he had to; she was a rather puzzling person. "Aunt Violet studies physics," he finally spoke, voice as steady as he could make it, likely not wanting to appear weak to his little cousin. He did not so much as flinch as he swapped at his scrapes with alcohol, making the white cotton grow pink with diluted blood. "In physics, there are absolute constants, things that never change. Gravity is always the same, distance over time is always the same… Formulas can define the entire world without variation."

"What does that have to do with Mycroft?"

He tossed the cotton into the bin. He missed, and was forced to go fetch it and drop it in. When he bent, his movements were that of a very old man. "She read books on children as if they were physics textbooks, and she took them as constants. A baby talks at this age, a five-year-old knows these things, an eight-year-old does these things…" He turned to me, an emotion I simply could not place in those green eyes of his. "Mycroft… Well, Mycroft was, is, a grand exception to most of the rules."

That was an understatement if I ever heard one. I was a remarkably intelligent child, or so said all my progress reports written by my teachers, but Mycroft was something most people could not comprehend. Even to his teachers he hid it; he could easily attend university, but Father wanted him in normal education as long as he could stand it (God knows how much longer that would be).

"That's what is it? He's not some neat mathematical norm, and so she simply ignores he exists?"

"An oversimplification, but I suppose that's the brunt of it," shrugged my cousin, screwing the cap back upon the alcohol bottle and stowing the medical supplies away for the next catastrophe. "One would think he would mind… Maybe he does, he never wants to talk about it, even with me."

I was silent, more loathing within my young body than there should be in a child. I had never before doubted the sanctity of my family. Why would I? My elder brother tolerated and even enjoyed me as few could, my father's eyes held nothing but love for me, and my mother was present enough to pat me on the head for things well done. Now my brother was abnormal, my father was an inactive witness and bystander, and my mother was so petty I could barely comprehend it."

"Sherlock, please, don't be mad at Violet," my cousin said softly, drawing me into a tight embrace, his voice layered with fatigue that was not only physical. "Mycroft… Well… It cannot be easy to treat him as a person if you haven't known him all your life."

"Father loves him," I choked out. Any other time I would have shunned physical comfort, but now I clung to my kin as if I were a rat, claws imbedded into a chunk of driftwood.

"Sigerson would love the Devil himself."

"He hated your father." I felt Sherrinford stiffen, knowing I must have struck a sore nerve. And yet, was that entirely it? Though young, my instincts were keen. "Your father… Uncle Trafford has something to do with the bad thing that Mycroft did…What did he do?"

My cheeks were flushed red, I could feel them burning. No doubt they struck as firebrands on my bone white skin. I was pale at the best of times, all of the numerous sunburns I received peeling off without leaving the barest brushing of tan, and now in my distress my complexion was likely akin to transparency. No doubt my eyes were reddened to match my cheeks, being largely unaccustomed to tears and near-tears.

My cousin had known this question was coming and yet he balked all the same, his movements almost a continued flinch as he began replacing the supplies into the medical kit for the next injured soul to tend to himself with. "Sherlock…"

"I want to know, Sherrinford!" My hands clenched into fists that would be useless against him, an empty threat of violence. My knuckles must not have whitened, for I do not believe any cell of skin on my body could be driven any paler. "I need to know what he did!" And yet as I demanded this, I wondered if what he told me would make me hate Mycroft just as much as our mother did.

Sherrinford finally sighed, taking a seat at a chair meant for a servant. He seemed so much older than his young years at that moment. "You can never repeat this, Sherlock, not even to Mycroft himself. I'm not even sure of this myself, but… But I'm likely right. God knows I don't want to be…" He drew a shaking breath, meeting my eyes as levelly as he could manage as if I were his peer instead of one much younger. "I think Mycroft helped Sigerson poison my father."

I had not been expecting this. Truth be known, I was not expecting anything, even my imagination not able to conjure up the horrid deed in question, but this was beyond any parameters I had mentally set.

"No…" I first insisted. "No, that can't be it. Mycroft hates violence, he won't even go hunting. He'd never kill a person. Or even help. Why…"

"To save me and Adelaide, Sherlock." Sherrinford rested a hand on my shoulder, his own awkward comfort attempting to shine through. "You're young to remember it, but you know how bad he was to us. We might not even have lived too long if he really got into a rage… I think Uncle Sigerson wanted to do it, he threatened to do it, but he didn't know how to do it without getting caught, so he went to Mycroft…"

I knew that my brother kept all sorts of things for various reasons, and he would be well-informed as to what local plants could be turned into suitable poisons. He would do anything to help Father… Mother's rejection of him like a weary bird pushing a hatchling out of her nest too early had bound his loyalty firmly to our sire. Perhaps he had not even asked what the poison had been for, had simply handed it over, trusting his judgement…

"Are you like Adelaide?" I finally rasped out, all too aware that tears were once again forcing their pushy way up through my ducts. "Do you think he's dying because he's a heathen? That God is punishing him for killing a godly man?"

"Sherlock, we are going to get one thing straight. Adelaide and my father are and were not Christians. They are and were half insane." Sherrinford was not often serious, but when he wanted to he could chill entirely to the bone. I think Mycroft showed him how to speak like that.

"What's the difference?" I spat out. My words were as bitter as the taste I could feel tingling on the insides of my cheeks, like shiny green leaves no one in their right mind would eat. Was this the taste of the Forbidden Fruit? Was this how the air tasted when the evils within Pandora's box took to wing?

My cousin sighed and old man's sigh, slumping further into the unyielding wooden chair. "People always ask why God allows bad things to happen. Me, I think there's a lot of truth in that Tao book of Myke's; there has to be balance in the universe, and perhaps God's the one who keeps it. He knows that it might cause people a lot of pain and He knows a lot of people are apt to hate Him for it, but He has to do it all the same."

"And Adelaide…?"

"Adelaide misses our father, Sherlock, but not in the way she should. She was taken in by our father, she knew no other life but being dominated by the all-powerful father figure. She took on faith to fill the cracks in her life after he died, but…" Here he sighed, and I felt a sharp twang of guilt for driving him like a whip-cracking jockey through so many emotions in one short night. "She didn't fill up the cracks with anything bad, not in theory, but the cracks themselves were bad… Does that make any sense? She doesn't want God's love. She wants God's punishment to keep her in line, and to strike down anyone who disagrees with the principle. Like our father."

I had to ask myself, was my brother just in killing a man who would raise his daughter as such? To clasp at dry, crumbling words for comfort without so much as feeling the spirit behind the words themselves? To long so for abuse that she antagonized the small pocket of family that cared for her well-being?

But did he even kill him? Wasn't that the grand question. Were my brother and my fathers co-conspirators in a murder? Mycroft was aloof, I would give him that, but his façade of stony indifference would crumble whenever I had burnt myself with my chemicals or Delilah came wailing to him about what one of the village boys had said about her (though neither would tell me why it was such an insult to be called Mary Magdalene; she had been in the Bible, hadn't she…?). My father had rarely spoken a harsh word to those he loathed the most.

I glanced at the clock plodding about as regularly as a forge ass, cogs and clockwork unaware of emotion or strife beyond its endless, unchanging routine. I pitied them. It was four thirty, dawn not yet breaking but no doubt rousing and readying itself to do so.

"I'm going to check on Myke." I started at Sherrinford's voice, worry mixed with a desperate attempt at strength. I knew that the conversation was over, that our muddled little family could never again be discussed in such frank terms. The situation had allowed for a window of truth, and now it was being slammed shut for the sake of peace in the household.

"The doctor's likely still in there…" Had he died during our prattling, I hoped someone would have come to inform us.

"I'm just going to peek through the door if no one's about, I just want to see how things are going." He could not stand to wait on the fate of a young man he considered as much of a brother as I.

Before that night, Sherrinford had entertained the thought of becoming a doctor. Our father would have cheerfully sponsored such an education (he had nudged both his blood sons towards the profession, but Mycroft lacked sympathy and I lacked focus). My cousin had the romantic idea of being a medical squire, being called upon to heroically deliver a baby the midwife could no longer manage, to save the lives about him and be a saint to those who rented our land instead of an iron-fisted landlord.

When he stuck his head into Mycroft's bedroom and saw a crude surgery mainly performed on livestock as a last ditch effort, he slammed the door, was sick, abandoned all fantasies of the medical profession and fainted.


End file.
